CITY MAY BUY BANK BUILDING AT MAIN AND BROADWAY

Over the next 60 days, city officials plan to inspect the old Boatmen's Bank building at Main Street and Broadway in an effort to determine whether the city should buy it.

If the deal goes through, the city could move the Convention and Visitors Bureau there, use the old drive-up windows for accepting payments of city bills and use the vaults for storing city records, said City Manager Michael Miller.

The city could realize some income from the building by renting Nationsbank space for an Automatic Teller Machine there, Miller said.

Nationsbank purchased Boatmen's last year and just completed the merger.

Both the City Council and Convention and Visitors Bureau Advisory Committee have discussed the proposal in closed meetings in the past week.

Miller said the city and Nationsbank "have verbally agreed on an option" for buying the building. He said the two parties have agreed that if the deal goes through, the city would pay "less than market value" for it.

Jim Limbaugh, regional executive for Southeast Missouri and Southern Illinois for Nationsbank, said if agreement is reached the bank would be able to dispose of the facility while maintaining a presence downtown.

He said talks with the city began as soon as the bank decided to close the building.

Mary Miller, director of the Convention and Visitors Bureau, said the ATM would satisfy a great need tourists have downtown. She said that when people get off riverboats here, the two things they look for first are pay phones and ATMs.

She said she would want the city to install a bank of pay phones at the facility as well.

Mary Miller said the building is at an ideal location for the Convention and Visitors Bureau. "The No. 1 attraction in the city is the Mississippi River," so the office would be in a place tourists want to be already. In addition, many of Cape Girardeau's historic sites are nearby.

She said it has a parking lot large enough to accommodate tour buses. Right now the only public places tour buses can stop are the Osage Centre and the Show Me Center.

The city needs to determine whether the building can be used to accommodate a visitors center with displays and maps of the city, Mary Miller said.

Officials would not discuss the price, but said it would be sold for less than market value.

Mary Miller said the Convention and Visitors Bureau has about $250,000 in its building fund that could go toward the purchase and to fixing up the building.

Michael Miller said the city could dip into reserve funds to pay for part of the purchase price since some of the building will not be used by the visitors bureau.

Limbaugh said he is anxious for the city to take over the building.